Leonard Skierski

Leonard Skierski (26 April 1866-April/May 1940) was a general of Poland during World War I, the Polish-Soviet War, and World War II.

Biography
Leonard Skierski was born on 26 April 1866 in Stopnica in the Russian Empire (present-day Stopnica, Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship, Poland) to a Calvinist Protestant family of szlachta (legally-privileged nobles). In 1884 he joined the Russian Army and he rose through the ranks; by February 1915 he was a Major-General of the Imperial Russian Army during World War I. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he joined the Polish 5th Corps, which fought alongside France and Russia against the German Empire. He later escaped imprisonment by Bolsheviks and took part in partisan operations in the countryside of Ukraine against the Red Army of the Soviet Union. As a highly-popular commander of troops and a maneuverable general, he was made the commander of a major part of Josef Pilsudski's Polish Army during the Polish-Soviet War of 1920.

Skierski spearheaded the push against the Soviets during the Battle of Warsaw near the Wieprz River, and he pushed the Bolsheviks back to the Slucz. After the ceasefire of 1920, he rose to the rank of General Divisji (Major-General) and retired on 31 December 1931. During World War II he was one of the fourteen Polish generals rounded up by the Soviets and killed in the Katyn Massacre of 1940.